Volunteers working in Darnford Park

Volunteers have removed a group of trees as part of a project to reinstate a local canal.

Three newly-trained chainsaw operators from Lichfield and Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust, supervised by an officer from the Forestry Commission, cut down the trees in Darnford Park – the last opportunity before bird-nesting season.

Volunteers working in Darnford Park
Volunteers working in Darnford Park

The site will contain a staircase lock required to lower the level of the canal sufficiently for tunnels to be built under the A38 and the A51 Tamworth Road.

Earth from the canal bed will be used to build an environmental mound alongside the A38 and a sandstone outcrop will be created in the open park area, to encourage birds and bees.

A spokesperson for the Trust said: “Work already carried out includes the diversion of a foul sewer which crossed the park.

T”he environmental mound, a very effective sound barrier to the A38 traffic noise, means surplus soil is retained and used on site rather than being transported on local roads and recreates a lowland heathland surface.

“It also incorporates log stacks, used to protect specimen trees and provide ‘bug hotels’ for invertebrates, and increases the biodiversity of the area for birds and other wildlife, as well as trapping carbon which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere through burning.”

The Trust is restoring the seven-mile length of the Lichfield Canal, which was abandoned in 1954 but the route through Darnford Park is a new section because the original path is no longer available.